The Little Gleaner Part 66

S. DENNIS.

THERE is a pre-established harmony between the voice of the Shepherd and the heart of the sheep. "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you."

LITTLE KINDNESSES.

For the intercourse of social life, it is by little acts of watchful kindness recurring daily and hourly--and opportunities of doing kindnesses, if sought for, are for ever starting up--it is by words, by tones, by gestures, by looks, that affection is won and preserved. He who neglects these trifles, yet boasts that, whenever a great sacrifice is called for, he shall be ready to make it, will rarely be loved. The likelihood is, he will not make it, and if he does, it will be much rather for his own sake than for his neighbour's. Many persons, indeed, are said to be penny wise and pound foolish; but they who are penny foolish will hardly be pound wise, although selfish vanity may now and then for a moment get the better of selfish indolence, for Wisdom will always have a microscope in her hand.

A DRUNKARD'S WILL.

I leave to society a ruined character, a wretched example, and a memory that will soon rot. I leave to my parents, during the rest of their lives, as much sorrow as humanity in a feeble and declining state can sustain. I leave to my brothers and sisters as much mortification and injury as I could bring on them. I leave my wife a broken heart, a life of wretchedness and shame, to weep over my premature death. I give and bequeath to each of my children, poverty, ignorance, and low character, and the remembrance that their father was a monster.

WE may as well attempt to bring pleasure out of pain as to unite indulgence in sin with the enjoyment of happiness.--_Hodge._

THE LAND OF THE GIANTS.

"_And we took all his cities at that time: there was not a city which we took not from them," &c._--DEUT. iii. 4, 5.

Sixty cities in one small province! Can it be true? Has not the copyist erred in his arithmetic? Should it not be sixteen, or six? Does it not appear improbable? The province mentioned, Argob, is not more than thirty miles by twenty; and that within so limited a s.p.a.ce there should be sixty cities, "besides unwalled towns a great many," can scarcely be accepted literally.

Now, it is a great blessing, for the confirmation of our faith in the truth of the Bible, and the silencing of those who delighted in making others to be of a doubtful mind, that the literal truth of the statement is fully established--not by a comparison of parallel pa.s.sages; not by a new translation of the text; not by the testimony of ancient historians; but by the remains of the cities themselves. There are they in Argob, the oldest specimens of domestic architecture in the whole world.

English travellers have visited the wild land of the giants; they have penetrated into the rocky recesses of Argob; they have slept in the deserted homes of the Rephaim; and have come back to tell us that the stones reared by those ancient idolaters bear witness to the truth of the living G.o.d.

The Rev. J. L. Porter spent a considerable time in exploring the cities of Bashan. At Burak he lodged in a city of several hundred houses, all deserted, but all in good repair, though built two or three thousand years ago. The walls of these houses were five feet thick, formed of large blocks of hewn stone, put together without lime or cement of any kind. The roofs were formed of long blocks of the same black basalt, measuring twelve feet in length, eighteen inches in breadth, and six inches in thickness. The doors were stone slabs hung upon pivots formed of projecting parts of the slabs, working in sockets in the lintel and threshold; the windows were guarded with stone shutters--everything was of stone, as if the builders had designed each edifice to last for ever.

The cities have endured, but the inhabitants have fled. You pa.s.s the ruined gateway where stern warriors kept watch, and from whose towers the watchmen swept the country and signalled the coming of the foe. All is hushed. Rank weeds and gra.s.s, brambles and creeping plants, have overgrown the well-made roads; and in the ma.s.sive houses, where once on a time happy groups a.s.sembled, and children shouted with joy, the fox and the jackal make their dwelling, while owls and daws take possession of the roof. Here is a city that must at one period have contained at least twenty thousand inhabitants. Once its streets were noisy and bustling, and the dealers made their shrewd bargains in the markets, while the grandees dwelt in their stone palaces, haughty of spirit, as if the slaves who waited on them were of another flesh than theirs. Here dwelt the giants, and after them Jews, and Greeks, and Romans, Saracens and Turks, each leaving memorials of their presence; but all gone--the whole abandoned to the wild birds and the beasts of prey. There are palaces with thorns and thistles growing in the chief room; there are temples with branches of trees shooting through the gaping walls; there are tombs festooned with the rich luxuriance of nature; there is everything to tell of desolation and decay.

You remember that we read in Joshua that the kingdom of Og, the giant, included all Bashan unto Salcah; and the Israelites took and occupied the whole land, from Mount Hermon unto Salcah. This is the frontier city of Bashan, and is one of the most remarkable in Palestine. There are about five hundred houses still remaining, a number of square towers, a few mosques, and a great old castle on the top of a hill. But the city, held at first by the giants, and at last by the Turks, has long been deserted, and the tread of horses on the paved street disturbs only a fox in its den or a wild bird in its nest. The castle hill is about three hundred feet in height, the base encircled by a moat. The building itself appears to have been of Jewish foundation, though it is probable that the site was occupied by a still older fortress. There is Roman masonry in the work, and the Saracens have added to the beauty, if not to the strength, of the structure; but though the exterior wall remains, the interior is choked with rubbish. The summit of the castle commands an extensive prospect--a varied, romantic, but wild scene of rugged rocks and luxuriant verdure, comprising no less than thirty deserted cities. On the right stretches Moab, on the left Arabia; behind, in terraced slopes, the hills of Bashan--a sad and solemn scene of utter desolation.

BIBLE ENIGMA.

A son of Gideon.

A king of Moab.

An untruthful woman.

A man slain by G.o.d.

The son of a persecuted woman.

What did the Israelites once desire?

A G.o.d-fearing man.

An officer of a king.

One of the Apostles.

The initials will form a pa.s.sage of Scripture.

ALFRED CLAPSON (Aged 10 years).

_Reigate._

OUR BIBLE CLa.s.s.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD, HIS LAMBS AND SHEEP.

(ISAIAH xl. 11.)

We know that Jesus is the Person of whom our text speaks, because His herald and forerunner is described in the third verse, and John the Baptist applied the prophecy to himself, when the Pharisees wanted to know who he really was--"The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord."

He came to teach the necessity of repentance, to reprove the pride of the Pharisee, bringing low the hills and mountains of their self-esteem; while the despised tax-gatherers and soldiers were taught how to rise, by the grace of G.o.d, to the position of honourable and useful members of society, and thus the valleys were exalted (Luke iii. 6-14). G.o.d, according to His promise, sent His Prophet to turn the hearts of the people in some measure before Jesus Himself appeared (Mal. iv. 5, 6).

And then, though in a human form, the "Lord G.o.d came with strong hand,"

"mighty to save." His "reward was with Him, and the recompense of His work was before Him," and He did then, and does still, "feed His people like a shepherd." It was the Lord G.o.d who came among men; but how did He come? Not with earthly pomp and glory, and His heavenly majesty was but dimly seen.

I thought of this on July 17th last, when the Prince of Wales went with the Princess to open the Great Northern Hospital at Upper Holloway, London. The Royal party were attired in deep mourning, on account of the recent death of the Emperor Frederick of Germany, and so quietly did their carriage pa.s.s along that many scarcely recognized them, and nearly all who were looking expectantly for the Prince's coming were greatly disappointed at the absence of a showy retinue. Yet he fulfilled all that he promised, and more, for he, with his wife and daughters, visited all the patients in the hospital, speaking kindly words, and doubtless giving real pleasure to those afflicted ones.

So, when that infinitely greater One, the Prince of Peace, came, He did all that had been predicted of Him; and though even His own disciples expected grandeur which they did not find, and for a while were grieved and perplexed, yet when, by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they better understood His mission, they perceived that He had finished His work most gloriously, and had "done all things well."

The Shepherd of Israel, then, is the Lord G.o.d, of whom David sang, "The Lord" (Jehovah) "is my Shepherd: I shall not want," which Jesus followed up by saying, "I am the Good Shepherd, and am come that My sheep might have life, and have more abundantly all the blessings My people enjoyed before I came into this world" (see John x.).

"He shall feed His flock like a Shepherd." Jesus here appears as a King as well as a Shepherd, for good kings care for and defend their subjects, but none can do as He does, who is "over all, blessed for evermore." All other shepherds must lead their sheep into green pastures, or procure them food in some other way, but Jesus supplies His people from Himself. All the fulness of love, grace, and blessing are His own, and as the poet sings--